Deeplinks Blog posts about Free Speech

Hamza Kashgari is under threat. The blogger and journalist fled to Malaysia from Saudi Arabia on February 8 after tweets he wrote about the Prophet Mohammed provoked clerics to demand he be tried for apostasy and members of the public to call for his murder. After arriving in Malaysia on his way to a third country, however, he was arrested by security officials at Kuala Lumpur airport, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. Kashgari is currently under threat of extradition to Saudi Arabia. The Guardian has reported Malaysian sources as stating that the request for extradition came from Interpol, a charge that Interpol denies.

The world’s biggest democracy is a formidable power in the IT sector. With software exports comprising approximately ten percent of India’s total GDP and a technology sector that employs more than 2.5 million people, India is poised to become a global industry leader. Over the past ten years, India has also experienced a rapid increase in Internet penetration, growing from 5.5 million users in 2000 to 61.3 million in 2009, and government initiatives have brought the Internet to rural areas by way of setting up cybercafés, in the hopes of closing the country’s digital divide.

On Wednesday, EFF will give recommendations to the European Parliament for how to combat one of the mosttroubling problems facing democracy activists around the world: the fact that European and American companies are providing key surveillance technology to authoritarian governments that is then being used to aid repression.

The Sultanate of Oman has received little attention throughout the so-called Arab Spring, despite unprecedented protests last February. Although there is no reported online political censorship, reports that the government monitors private communications, as well as the country's recently amended penal code (which suggests punishment for those charged with weakening the "prestige of the state"), suggest that the Omani blogosphere likely engages in self-censorship. Despite that, no blogger has ever been reported arrested in the Gulf country...until now.

As we have previously covered, the Vietnamese government continues to crack down on bloggers and writers who have spoken out against the Communist regime. Alternative news site, Vietnam Redemptorist News, has been targeted by the state and several of their active contributors have been arrested. Paulus Le Son, 26, is one of the most active bloggers who was arrested without a warrant.